No Last Name
by The Sh33p
Summary: A new look behind the eyepatch of Irvine, the merc with no last name. R&R, enjoy!


**Disclaimer:** I don`t own Zoids.  
  
No Last Name

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Know that old saying where someone "lights a fire under your ass?"   
  
I had that happen a few years ago, think it was five? Six maybe? Don`t remember, my longterm memory isn`t that great once you get to my mid-teens.   
  
I was sitting on a match one day and it decided to light itself. While I was gassy no less.   
  
The match was named Van Fleiheit, the gas happened to be named adventure and the fire was actually relatively decent once I finished healing up the burn marks.   
  
Yeah, I`m good at metaphor sometimes. Consider it one of those weirdo talents you have to pick up when you talk in code on a job to keep from being busted by the military or the police.   
  
And since you`re probably wondering, my name is Irvine. No last name, just Irvine.   
  
That`s cause I`m an orphan if you`re wondering, my dad died before I was born and my mom had a stupid tendancy to dive in front of extremely fast things, such as...   
  
Blue Oganoids...   
  
Heh.   
  
Anyway...   
  
Yes, I`m an orphan. I _had_ a sister but she didn`t exactly make it to my tenth birthday, but nothing too wrong with that. Given what we dealt with before she died, and what happened to me afterward, I guess she got off lucky. Chances are she`s up there with mom and dad right now staring down at me like an idiot.   
  
Irvine isn`t even my real name, yanno...   
  
I won`t say the real one though. I like the name Irvine, beats being the kid I was.   
  
I didn`t even have to think it up either, I just saw the name on a road sign the day before I met Moonbay and picked it. Beats being "Windsor Village" or "South Beach City," right?   
B Yeah, Moonbay doesn`t even know that though. Hell, no one does, I`ve really done a good job to rewrite my identity. That`s cause I`m an orphan though, without a family there wasn`t any real point to keeping my original name so I just decided to be someone else.   
  
I picked someone else to be and I found out it was me.   
  
Weird, isn`t it?   
  
I like me nowadays.   
  
I also like Moonbay but let`s ramble on that one later, `kay?   
  
Thanks. See now, Moonbay is part of a select group of people I call my unrelated family.   
  
Not friends though, friends come and go _way_ too easily. They practically drop like flies with me.   
  
But my unrelated family`s still around. Family doesn`t go unless it dies, that`s why I refuse to think of `em as just friends. Friends`d be an insult, that`s how high I think of them.   
  
Of course I`d kill them myself before admitting it, but that`s not the point. And yes, that was a joke, feel free to laugh at any time.   
  
My family consists of a small number. There`s a prince, a pauper, a hero, a geek, a relic, a trucker and a silver colored metal dog.   
  
Dysfunctional? You betcha, but we put the **fun** in dysfunction!   
  
... God I need to get some better jokes.   
  
But anyway, the prince is a kid named Rudolph. He`s actually an emperor, but I still think of him like a prince since he`s such a damn shrimp. Brave shrimp, crazy little shrimp, shrimp-in-need-of-a-haircut-_**BADLY**_ but still a shrimp nonetheless. After him there`s the pauper, he`s a guy by the name of Doctor D. Pervert, asshole, mild sociopath, show off and lunatic. I want to kill him as much I want to share a beer with him.   
  
Believe me, there isn`t any other way I could stand the guy if I didn`t want to kill him at least half the time while wanting to share a beer the other half, because if not for the beer, I`d have done it by now.   
  
The hero is Van Fleiheit, the cocky little punk I watched grow up into one of the biggest heroes I`ve ever seen. There are too many ways to describe the kid, he`s only what... Sixteen? Seventeen? He`s on a fast track to becoming a general, maybe even a Helic president someday. Not now, but you just wait and see. All that charisma and ambition, that kinda personality with the heroics of the guy who killed the Death Saurer and helped put down the Death Stinger?   
  
He has president written on his forehead in bright flashing neon letters.   
  
After him there`s the geek, the new guy. Thomas Schubaltz, I didn`t like him at first but flying into space with only one person as a wingmate in Storm Sworders and then crashing the Death Stinger from orbit with the guy has a way to endear him to ya, you know? One thing I don`t like about him is the way he looks at Fiona, and one thing I equally don`t like about Fiona is the fact she knowingly ignores it. That guy`s gonna need a _lot_ of therapy or a damn good lady someday, otherwise he`s gonna be Doctor D 2.0.   
  
Speaking of Fiona, she`s the relic. She`s like this weird little insta-sprout parasitic vermin that grows on you after a few minutes and you just can`t get rid of her. I`ve seen her grow just like Van, from a shrimpy little underdeveloped pre-teen to an intelligent young woman with looks and charm to spare. And no, I`m not speaking romantically, she may technically be 5,000+ years older than me but for gods sake man, she`s _ten years younger than I am_, both physically _and_ mentally. I may be a filthy mercenary who`d put a bullet in someone`s head out of annoyance, but I have a shred of moral decency left in me.   
  
I think of her like a sister anyway, it`d just be wrong.   
  
Then you have the prerequisite metallic... Thingamajig-trying-to-be-a-dog. It`s name is Zeke, he`s a six and a half foot tall miniature dinosaur-shaped organic/metallic Zoid dubbed an Organoid. He`s also the one Zoid that has ever, or ever _will_ punk me out without me getting some form of revenge. Even Raven and Shadow, Reise and Specular(... Blue Organoids...) and especially Hilz and Ambient didn`t get off scot free after punking me out. Zeke is the exception, let`s leave it at that.   
  
And then...   
  
Then ya have the trucker.   
  
The pretty, tuneless, wannabe-greedy trucker named Moonbay.   
  
No no, I`m not going to be a sappy little schoolboy, Van can do that with Fiona but me? I`m a grown man and besides...   
  
This _is_ Moonbay we`re talking about. We`re both too alike and too hardened to be saps for each other.   
  
Weird relationship there to say the least, we`ve gone from beating the snot out of each other the first time we met(which was after I got mugged when she started making fun of me...) to being intimate to being friends to being romantic to being...   
  
Well hell, we`ve gone through the cycle so many times I`m not even gonna bother trying to list everything about it. Suffice to say, we`re probably going to be married at some point or another, I can guess that much.   
  
It`ll probably be one of those weird long distance relationships knowing us, but it`ll probably be more genuine than most marriages are.   
  
Problem with that is that neither of us really believe in marriage, we`re both a little afraid and not sure how to commit.   
  
Did I mention I don`t have a last name? I think the city she comes from has that as a requirement and even if she tries, Moonbay is always gonna be at least a _little_ traditional. Women in that city don`t have last names till they`re married, if you`re wondering.   
  
Then I`ve got that McMan guy to deal with.   
  
I hate that guy...   
  
It`s not so much that he could probably make her happier than me if she let him, he`s just damn creepy. Look at him - when he smiles his teeth literally _shine_ and _twinkle_. Seriously. That guy freaks me out.   
  
I guess I have one thing going for him though, Moonbay loves me more than him. Oh sure, she does love him but she can`t lie to me to save her ass if she wanted. "He`s not rich enough," "I don`t like his music."   
  
_** HAH.   
  
**_ Bullcrap. Moonbay turned McMan down for me, I only went along with it to help her save face. Sometimes I have to wonder if I`m the only one in my little unrelated family who can see straight through everyone`s masks. I know Moonbay can - to some extent or another. She`s read me a little here, a little there, but not the way I know her.   
  
See, everyone has masks. Moonbay`s mask is that she`s a greedy trucker skank out for money only. Fiona`s mask is a lack of memory, she doesn`t know about it, Van`s mask is heroism, Thomas` mask is that he`s a bonafied military man when he`s more of a scientist, D`s mask is that he`s a scientist when he`s really a friggin` perv, Zeke`s mask is that he supposedly only understands Van and Fiona. Yes. Zeke has a mask.   
  
I got one too, I play the role of total asshole and I play it quite nicely thank you very much.   
  
But yeah, Moonbay`s mask is just another of those things I like about her.   
  
`Kay, how can I say any of what I like about her without being a sap? I _hate_ those romance movies where the guy and the girl are like "Oh god, I love you, I`ll never leave you, ever!" Someday, mark my words about this too, you will see me walk onto the set of one of those movies and smack _both_ of the actors with a baseball bat, say "I hate it when people talk like that," and then walk away without another word. That is a _promise_ here.   
  
Hm...   
  
Well, I guess I have to be a sap, I`m too good at speaking in metaphors when nobody`s looking to not be...   
  
No wait, I`ll go the road less travelled. See, Moonbay and I have never openly said we love each other, not even when we`re alone. We just sorta know it.   
  
I have one thing that only Van can top, so I`ll use that.   
  
Style.   
  
I`ll swing in on her at some point or... No, I`ll parachute in after ejecting from the Saix and let the Zoid trail along a big pink cloud and scream out "I love you!" at the top of my lungs...   
  
On second thought, _no_. That`s even worse than the movie cliches...   
  
I guess I`ll just tell her when I tell her. It`ll happen eventually.   
  
I love Moonbay after all, one day we`ll actually say it. Till then, we`re just fine the way we are.   
  
But I`ll definately need to get a last name before then...   
  


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**Author`s Note:** Did this one in response to the request/suggestion from ElfMaidenOfLight during her review of the little Moonbay piece I did a few days ago. Hope ya like it Elfy :P  
  
On a side note: These are all one part stories, they don`t have other chapters since they`re just attempts to break molds that people put characters in. Hopefully I haven`t gotten complacent with this one but for some reason, I can hear and see Irvine doing and saying a lot of this. Go figure...  
  
Got a request for a fic like this on another Zoids char? Go ahead and leave it in a review, I may actually write it down for ya...  
  
Unless I`ve already done it. Sh33p out folks, take care. 


End file.
